Ah, see I also think the US system is messed up, but for the opposite reason. The US is one of the few places in the world with elected judges, and most of the rest are political appointments. In the rest of the world, there are non-partisan process to select qualified judges. Political appointments for administrative positions are just bad and contributes to the polarization we see today. With elections, I don't think the majority of voters are actually researching and assessing these down-ballot races, but just voting along party lines. This means, instead of a (TBF, potentially flawed) non-partisan process, you just have the parties selecting judges, giving political parties even more power.